Three Lessons from Paul

In light of the incredibly sad news that Paul Otellini passed away at a much too young age, I wanted to share a few memories and lessons I had from him. One of my favorite, most fortunate, and most memorable roles in my career was the time I spent working in the Executive Office at Intel with "PSO" as we often called him. Although I had the honor to get to know not only him but also his predecessor and successor, my career there always felt particularly connected with him as my stay at Intel essentially matched his reign as Chief Executive. As a way to remember him, I wanted to share three lessons that I learned from this great leader.

"You can never be too close to product"

One of my hardest decisions was what to do at Intel after working in the Executive Office. With the opportunity to work on corporate strategy, travel to exciting locales and glamorous events, and work with the highest quality people, it was hard to imagine another role that would compare. Thanks to my experience in the Office, I had a number of great opportunities in front of me. When I asked Paul what his advice would be for me, he simply told me, "You can never be too close to product." By that, he meant it was fundamental to understand the product and the technology behind the company's success. Paul Otellini was famously the first non-engineer to become the CEO of Intel, following former-engineers-turned-CEO's Noyce, Moore, Grove, and Barrett. Although Paul was a finance guy, he grew his career beyond that including formative experiences with Intel's key businesses in microprocessors and chipsets. I took his advice to heart and my next role after the Executive Office was in product working with our mobile communications platforms.

"Hope is not a strategy"

As a leader, although Paul's style was calm and data oriented, he wouldn't hesitate to ask tough questions and give blunt feedback to people. One of Paul's favorite lines he quoted from his mentor, the legendary Andy Grove, was "Hope is not a strategy." Not meant as a criticism or ridicule, to me the phrase was a reference to not only understand the situation at hand, but a reminder that there needs to be a concentrated effort to act in a way that increases opportunities and reduces problems. It's a phrase that I love and still use all the time.

"Know when to walk away"

To me, this lesson was reflected both in Paul's decisions as a CEO and also exemplified by his decisions in his own career. During Paul's term as CEO, Intel pursued many new growth opportunities around mobile, software, and new market segments. However, it was also a challenging time when the company was forced to make some hard decisions and exit other businesses. Understandably, these decisions can be very difficult to make, but often it is because of looking back at the time and resources spent versus looking forward at the possible or even likely future outcomes. Even if the outcome is not ideal, there can be great lessons even in failure if you look for it which can surpass the lessons in success. Understanding what the sunk costs are and the opportunity costs could be is something that has been important for me in not only decision making for the organizations I work at but also for my own career and life.

My thoughts are with Paul's family and I hope they know that I, like many others, am very grateful to have had the opportunity to know Mr. Otellini personally. My time there was not only important in my career but in my life. I want to thank PSO for the privilege of working with him and the company that he helped make great.